Sorcerers' Isle

by D. P. Prior

  Using a scalpel from the room above the cellar, she set about marking her new talisman with shallow cuts, knowing, without knowing how, where exactly to place the blade, and how long each incision should be. She worked tirelessly, diligently, building up a network of lacerations like, and yet unlike, those she had scarred herself with.

  [That is not a pleasant pattern,] the Shedim said, though there was glee in its inner voice.

  “Then it must be reflection of your character,” Tey said aloud. “Seeing as you are the one guiding my hand.”

  [Not me. I did at first, with the trap comprised by your scars, but not this. You have… You are… Do you know my thoughts? The repository of my lore? Can you see into my mind, Tey Moonshine?]

  She couldn’t, at least not consciously. Was she accessing the Shedim’s lore without knowing it? Without either of them knowing? Before she replied, she realized the true import of the Shedim’s question. It didn’t know that she couldn’t. One more advantage she had over it. One more secret. She chose not to answer.

  “I want it to kill,” she said, continuing to score Slyndon’s Grun’s desiccated finger.

  [And it will. But you must never use it when your well is empty. It has no amplifier like the vambrace. Its drain on your own essence could cripple you, or worse. Who do you have in mind?]

  Tey paused in her cutting. She hadn’t really thought about that.

  “Someone. Anyone, I suppose.”

  Anyone who tried to harm her. No, that was the thinking of a victim. She already had her scar-trap, and she’d shown herself capable of finishing whoever she drained and sealing in their essence. So why? Why did she need this new talisman, this fetish that could arbitrarily kill? She couldn’t deny she was thrilled by the idea. Excited that it would enable her to strike preemptively. She caught herself grinning.

  [It may prove useful,] the Shedim conceded. [But the key is what I have already shown you: the pattern of your scars, the filling of your well. These are your foundations. The rest I will teach you as you progress.]

  “There,” Tey said, setting the scalpel down, turning Slyndon Grun’s finger over and over, admiring the intricacy of her pattern. “So, it will work?”

  [Oh yes,] the Shedim said with a chuckle. [It will work.]

  With a needle, Tey made a hole at the tip of the talisman, then threaded a length of animal gut through it, knotting the ends together to make a necklace. She put it over her head, letting it hang between her breasts.

  Almost immediately, she had the feeling she was being watched, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. She turned to find Hirsiga standing in the doorway, Tey’s black dress draped over one arm. She looked different in some way.

  “How long have you been there?” Tey asked.

  Hirsiga’s eyes glinted as they met Tey’s. And there it was, the change that had come over her: Her eyes were no longer black pits; they were green and sparkling.

  “Not long,” Hirsiga said, coming across the floor to inspect what Tey had made. There was a new sway to her hips, an assurance in her bearing that had not been there before. She reached out to touch the totem, but Tey covered it with her hand.

  “You look different.”

  Hirsiga took a step back, touching her fingertips to her cheeks. “I feel… I feel like a fog has lifted.”

  Tey thought back to what Theurig had done to her and Snaith. Clearly, whatever potions Slyndon Grun had been giving Hirsiga had worn off. She nodded. “That’s good.”

  Hirsiga smiled, her gaze never wavering.

  Tey dipped her chin to her chest, then looked away, pretending to be absorbed in Slyndon Grun’s open journal atop the workbench. Something about the way Hirsiga looked at her was unsettling. Maybe it was just the change. Before, she’d been so passive, but now… now she was a person, and Tey had never been good around people. She risked a glance, but Hirsiga must have picked up on her discomfort and lowered her eyes.

  “Did you—”

  “I’ve looked everywhere, but still no cure.”

  “It has to be here,” Tey said. “Else Vrom would be dead.”

  Hirsiga nodded and shrugged at the same time. “I had him wash your dress and dry it.” Without waiting for permission, she proceeded to put it over Tey’s head and pull it down, covering her nakedness. Tey stood motionless, a child once more, as Hirsiga guided her arms into the sleeves and straightened out the creases. Last of all, Hirsiga tucked Slyndon Grun’s preserved finger out of sight beneath the collar line. Her cheek twitched as she touched it.

  “There, that’s better,” Hirsiga said, in a voice that reminded Tey of her mother.

  For some reason, the thought that Vrom had handled her dress made Tey cringe. Her arms began to itch beneath the wool, though she knew it was just her imagination. Why should it matter that Vrom had washed it for her? She should have been pleased. But it felt like a violation, despite the fact Vrom had always been a victim and could never conceivably harm anyone.

  “My shawl?”

  “It was torn. I think Vrom threw it away.”

  Kept it more likely, the Witch Woman said. To sniff and rub against his skin. To clean himself up with.

  Tey bridled at the thought, then immediately chastised herself for thinking of Vrom like that. After all he’d been through. All he’d suffered. It was the loss of her mother’s shawl upsetting her, she told herself. Another piece of her slipping away.

  Hirsiga affectionately touched Tey’s hair, let her hand linger as she tilted her head to one side and smiled—a mother’s smile, though tinged with something else. Tey felt herself coming apart at the seams, but rather than let that happen, she summoned the gory memory of what she’d done to Slyndon Grun, and once more allowed the Witch Woman to assume control.

  She clamped her fingers around Hirsiga’s wrist and pulled her hand away. Hirsiga retreated, eyes downcast, as if she sensed the change and knew she’d overstepped the mark.

  When Tey touched the front of her dress to feel the lump of the talisman beneath, Hirsiga flinched. As if seeking to deflect a scolding, she quickly said, “The others from the cellar have all been washed and fed. What would you like done with them?”

  Tey took in a long, slow breath. What indeed? She’d have to give that some thought. She could hardly send them all back home. If she did, their clans would stone them for defying the will of the Weyd. But what need did she have of them here?

  “They are yours now,” Hirsiga said, “to do with as you will.” She glanced up at Tey’s eyes, then looked away to one side, a pinkish blush blooming on her cheek. “As am I.”

  Left to herself, Tey would have fled in the face of all these people. One at a time she could handle, but not so many, and all of them expecting something from her. But the Witch Woman… the Witch Woman balled her fingers into fists. She was starting to see how this might work.

  “No one denies that you have replaced Slyndon Grun as head of this house,” Hirsiga said, so softly it seemed she expected to be struck for her insolence. “Just tell me what you want us to do.”

  Tey thought about that for a minute, then she asked, “Does he keep… Are there pigs in the yard?” She knew Theurig kept pigs, and that they famously ate anything. Anything at all.

  “Pigs?” Hirsiga said.

  “Slyndon Grun. I want him gone.” It wouldn’t be long before he started to molder, and she knew that once she caught a whiff of that stench, she’d never be rid of it.

  Hirsiga stared at her blankly for a moment then swallowed. “There are seagulls atop the cliffs. They’ll pick a carcass clean, same as vultures.”

  Tey gave a jerky nod and crossed her arms over her chest to ward off the sudden cold.

  “I’ll see to it,” Hirsiga said, then turned and left the room.

  THE SCARS OF EMPIRE

  Hoots, squawks, and gibbers skirled through the forest behind Snaith. He forgot his blistered feet, the pain in his knees, and kept on running, unhindered by his injured arm. If there was magic, m
aybe this was it. And the same power was at play in Theurig, who seemed to shed years like a snake shed skin. The sorcerer tore ahead with the dignity of a startled chicken, only twice as fast. But it wasn’t magic that fed them new strength. It was fear. And fear was a mundane power. It had limits. It had an end.

  As the cries of the Skaltoop hunters died down, Snaith’s running dropped to a brisk walk, then, as stinging agony crept back into the soles of his feet, he slowed to a painful shuffle. He kept casting anxious looks over his shoulder, but still there was nothing, no sign of pursuit. He couldn’t even be certain it was the Skaltoop they’d heard.

  For once the sorcerer waited for him, but as Snaith drew closer, he realized it was more from necessity than concern. Theurig was leaning on his staff, gasping for breath. His almost preternatural vitality had leached out of him, leaving his face gaunt and grey.

  They walked on in silent misery, hour after hour. Snaith lost all sensation in his feet, which was a small mercy. It made him wonder how much more damage was being done to them. Without pain, there was no way he could tell, until he could stop and take his boots off.

  His hunger returned, more insistent than before, leaving him heavy-limbed and listless, no longer caring if the Skaltoop came rushing out of the trees with axes to lop off heads and potions to shrink them.

  Without warning, Theurig picked up his pace, as if he’d gotten a second wind. “Not far to go now,” he said. “Then we’ll be safe.”

  “We’re already safe,” Snaith grumbled.

  “Just because we can’t hear them anymore doesn’t mean they’re not still out there.”

  Snaith held his breath, waiting for the slightest rustle of the undergrowth, the merest glimpse of movement, but there was nothing.

  They continued at a snail’s pace, crunching the detritus of the forest underfoot: crisp brown leaves, acorns, the odd tail feather, and the spoor of various beasts. There was a pervasive odor of loam and rotting vegetation. Then Theurig began to point out a weatherworn flagstone here, a broken balustrade there, mottled black and yellow with lichen.

  As the forest thinned and they came into a clearing, glints of white showed through the creepers carpeting the ground. Snaith stooped to get a closer look, then ripped up some vines to clear a patch. There was smooth stone beneath, squares of it locked tightly together with only hairline joins between them—a floor of once-pristine white, streaked with roseate veins.

  “Marble,” Theurig said. “Testament to the time the Hélumites were here.”

  “Marble?”

  “Later.” The sorcerer closed his eyes and let out a long, weary sigh. “Too tired. Just a little bit further now.”

  Up ahead, dozens of fallen pillars blocked their way. They were fluted, cast from some manner of pale stone. In among them were broken segments of arches and shards of colored glass. The stumps of the pillars’ bases remained in situ, flanking what might have been a colonnaded approach to the main body of ruins beyond.

  “The cloister,” Theurig mumbled, steering a course around the debris and in between piles of rubble, until they came to the bare bones of a once-vast building. All that remained were foundations of squares and rectangles that marked out a floor plan of corridors, halls, and chambers. One former hall had a mosaic floor of blue and white tiles. Much of it was speckled with a dark mossy growth, but the image of a monstrous dragon-like beast with tattered wings, and horns curling away from its exposed skull was still clearly visible. It sent a twinge of foreboding through Snaith, and he felt once more the prickling pain he’d experienced when Theurig had inked the Wyvern of Necras on his chest.

  On the far side of the foundations stood a circular space hemmed on one side with partially eroded stone benches that rose in a gentle gradient. The top tier of the seating was limned red by the sinking sun. In the center of the circle stood a five-sided block of granite topped with a slab of jade.

  “We’ll rest here for the night,” Theurig said. “The Skaltoop think the temple ruins are haunted.” He headed straight for the stone benches and slumped down onto the lowest tier. He lay his staff on the ground and set his bag beside it.

  In spite of his tiredness, Snaith was drawn to the center, to the jade-covered block. He slowly walked around it. Each of its five sides was etched with linear patterns, reminiscent of Tey’s scars, only they were stained dark. A rusted iron ring was set into the middle of the jade. He gave the ring a tug, but the slab didn’t budge. If it was a lid, it was either crusted in place, or too heavy for him to lift with one arm. He glanced at Theurig for an explanation.

  “It’s a font,” the sorcerer said. “For blood. Though what they did with it, the Weyd only knows. Slyndon Grun thought they might have used it to draw patterns, magical sigils or whatnot.”

  Snaith eyed the etched lines on the base, certain now what the stains were. Lost in fruitless contemplation of the patterns, he said, “But magic doesn’t exist.”

  “Not in the sense the clans think it does,” Theurig said. “Maybe not at all, in the strict definition. But there are effects that have the appearance of magic. Experience teaches me, though, to expect a day to come when a more mundane explanation will present itself.”

  Snaith turned away from the font and approached Theurig. “What effects?”

  “Oh, things. Things I saw in Hélum when I visited as an apprentice. Things I’ve witnessed maybe one or two times since.”

  Snaith seated himself beside the sorcerer, looking at him expectantly, wanting to know more.

  “Here? On the isle?”

  Theurig nodded pensively, then he suddenly blurted out, “You left the pack!”

  “You know I did.”

  “I do now.”

  “I had to leave it. The Skaltoop, remember?”

  Theurig sighed and shook his head. “Yes, well, the less said about that little episode, the better.”

  “You were scared, weren’t you?” Snaith said. “Even though they’re not supposed to harm sorcerers, you weren’t quite sure.”

  “I was merely being prudent. You, on the other hand, once fancied yourself a warrior. I had expected you to stay behind and fight, then bring the pack with you once you’d finished them off.”

  Snaith stared at him, open-mouthed, but then the sorcerer’s face cracked into a smile, and he winked.

  “Oh, you were joking,” Snaith said.

  “By now,” Theurig said, “I’d have thought you would have learned: I seldom do anything else. Nevertheless, I am hungry, and we have no food.” As if to illustrate his point, he rummaged about in his bag. There was an answering clink of glass on glass, the rustle of papers. Then he pulled out his costrel, upended it and let the last drops fall onto his tongue.

  “Dusk is upon us.” He stoppered the costrel and placed it back in his bag. “I had a pillow in that pack you left behind, and a blanket.”

  “How was I supposed to know?” Already Snaith was feeling the chill in the air, now that they had stopped moving and the sun had finally set.

  “It’s of no matter.” Though the set of the sorcerer’s jaw said that it was.

  “I’m sorry,” Snaith said. He wasn’t, but he was too tired to argue, and it was only a white lie, apologizing for something that wasn’t his fault. But that’s where great lies start, his old, ingrained attitudes seemed to say. It’s a slippery slope. Every falsehood turns solid ground into shifting sand. But isn’t that what he was going to have to do, in order to be a sorcerer? Lie to people? Trick them? Manipulate with word and deed?

  “Well,” Theurig said, “let’s not dwell on what’s past. At least it’s not raining.”

  It was a clear evening, and the moon glared down at them, a pallid skull.

  “Gibbous waxing,” Theurig said, following Snaith’s gaze. “According to the myth of the Gardeners, the best time for restorative magic, for healing and growth.”

  “Is that in Cawdor?” Snaith asked.

  “Read it and find out. Of course, the Gardeners dealt with weedi
ng, too, but that was best done at the waning of the moon. It’s said they excised entire species of flora that imperiled the Crafters’ vision for the unfurling of Nemus.”

  Theurig checked to see if Snaith was listening, if he was keeping up. It was an irritating technique he’d employed at the schoolhouse, throwing out words and terms, then looking to see who was most confused.

  “Nemus is the Egrigorean word for the world we live in,” the sorcerer said. “To my knowledge, the most ancient name we have, from before the dawn of history.”

  “And the Crafters?”

  “Who do you suppose made the mountains, the trees, the rivers, and everything else that makes this world so beautiful and so dangerous?”

  “I thought Elesia, the Lady of the Isle.”

  “Did you now?”

  “That’s what you taught us?”

  “Did I indeed?”

  “But Elesia doesn’t exist, right? Is that what you’re going to say?”

  Theurig looked up at the sky, where the stars were starting to scatter across the gathering dark. He pointed at a cluster of them. “We call that a constellation. See? The head, two arms, admittedly bent at impossible angles. A leg. The Weyd only knows what happened to the other one. That is Elesia. And that,” he said, pointing to another grouping off to the west, “is Cabyl the Plague Lord. Gosynag the Grey is… there, hunkered down beneath his cloak, they say.” One by one, he pointed out the gods of the Malogoi, nothing but patterns of stars in the night sky.

  “So, why did you teach us all this?” Snaith asked. “About gods who don’t exist?”

  “But they do exist,” Theurig said, indicating the sky. “Just not in the way you thought they did.”

  “And the other clans?”

  “Not my business.”

  “So, these Crafters created the world—Nemus?”

  Theurig nodded. “Apparently.”

  “How do we know?”